20 Cancelled Doctor Who Episodes You Need To Know About

2. Lost In The Dark Dimension

A short while into the Wilderness Years of the 1990s, it became clear that Doctor Who was going to be off air for its 30th anniversary.

To plug the gap, the BBC commissioned a feature-length, direct-to-video special titled Lost in the Dark Dimension.

Set in a world where the Fourth Doctor survived his fatal fall in Logopolis and thus never regenerated into his successors, it would've starred Tom Baker as an older Doctor, alongside the Brigadier, “Dorothy” (an alternate version of Ace) and the Brigadier’s son/Ace’s boyfriend, Alex.

The other surviving Doctors would've featured in minor roles, with the Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors and Yeti also returning. Rik Mayall was being eyed up for the ultimate big bad, Hawkspur (a professor/politician possessed by a deadly alien entity).

The special was formally announced in June 1993, but by July it had been canned, owing to an insufficient budget, complaints from the Doctor actors about not having bigger roles, and the ongoing negotiations that led to the 1996 TV Movie.

The BBC instead celebrated Doctor Who’s 30th birthday with the Children in Need special Dimensions in Time, which was certainly... an episode.